Why use patent information?

The publication of patent specifications is an essential part of the patenting process. Patent specifications must set out the full technical details of how an invention works. To date, over 37 million patents have been published world-wide and around 1 million new ones appear each year.

This makes patents the largest single body of technological information available anywhere. Most of this information cannot be obtained from any other source. Patents also provide useful commercial information which gives an insight into what new markets your competitors are developing and which countries they see as providing their main markets.